Weekend Estimates: Twilight and Bond Lead Record-Setting Thanksgiving

November 25th, 2012

As expected, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 and Skyfall are dominating the Thanksgiving charts, and, with some help from three new releases and two strong holdovers, will produce the most lucrative Thanksgiving holiday in history. All told, we should see something a little over $200 million in revenue for the three-day portion of the weekend, placing it in the top 20 weekends of all time. Breaking Dawn, Part 2 is tracking about in line with Part 1 at this point in its run. In contrast, Skyfall is well ahead of James Bond's previous outing, and has become the first Bond movie to top $200 million domestically (before adjusting for inflation).

Lincoln continues to generate impressive returns in 3rd place, with another $25 million Friday-Sunday, and an increase of 19% from the same period last week. Rise of the Guardians is looking soft in 4th, with $24 million from 3,653 theaters; it will need great word-of-mouth to thrive through the holidays. Life of Pi looks much better in comparison, with $22 million from 2,927 venues, while Red Dawn, as expected, is an also-ran with $14.6 million from 2,725 theaters.

In limited release, Hitchcock will pick up about $300,000 from 17 theaters this weekend, which translates into a hefty, but not blockbusting, $17,700 per theater. After that, Rust & Bone will average $15,000 or so from its two debut theaters. Three films, including the aforementioned Lincoln, will average about $12,000. The other two are Anna Karenina, with $831,732 projected from 66 theaters, and The Silver Linings Playbook, with $4,623,000 projected from 367 theaters. Both numbers are very good, of course, but suggest only niche appeal going forwards.